Melon Donkey
I am a little bit perplexed
The real kick in the bollox could be at 5pm today. Teams above us should all be winning the games they have. And blues have an easy game aswell against Barcelona City.
Was Grealish taken off and replaced by Whelan because of an injury? We went on the back foot a bit after that.
In all fairness even back then we had the makings of a very good side
Yes. Been carrying a knock for weeks apparently.
And yes. I thought the subs unbalanced it . We didn't look as comfortable.
Although I'm disappointed we lost 2 points at the end of the game, it was good to see us yet again outplay another promotion contender. If we keep up this kind of form top 2 is still ours for the taking.
I thought we looked much better 2nd half when Elmo came on at RB, he kept Barnes far quieter than Hutton did. Hutton also looked far more solid at LB than Taylor - a clear weak link that the Baggies were trying to target. After that change they didn't threaten us apart from long punts into the box.
El Ghazi MoM for me. I wasn't impressed with him at all under Bruce - I know it takes foreign players time to settle sometimes but he always looked weak and unsuited to this league. He made Gibbs look a mug on a few occasions last night and I never knew he had a shot like that in him.
We've certainly got all the other teams in this league worried now, quite a few think we look nailed on for promotion.
Think DS said he'd had one to one coaching sessions with El Ghazi, explaining to him what he wanted. Not rocket science!
Being critical for a moment about the match, Tammy's miss in front of goal was poor; we need a bit more consistency from him, and also when he's up against a defender with a cross coming in the defender usually wind. That's one area where Kodj is probably stronger. Bolasie isn't yet the player we think he is; he's good at beating defenders but a lot of it is wasted. El Ghazi is sheer danger in attack but he doesn't yet do the defensive bit very well.
I think part of the problem these days is that professional football in England is now attracting people with the wrong attitude. There are far more attention seekers than I've ever seen before and particularly at a big stage like Villa Park.
Sure we have had several of them in the past but they still remained decent refs but not this bunch who spoil games with the attitude.......
"Oh look at me and how much power I have"
The way it's going we could one day end up seeing this sort of thing on a regular basis:eek!:
!